Human Heat: New Album and Tour Ticket Giveaways

Minneapolis-based band Human Heat is Alex Schaaf of Yellow Ostrich (Barsuk), and touring member of The Tallest Man on Earth. He’ll release All Is Too Much on September 15 via Offline Records, and we’ve got tickets to give away for the short run of tour dates.

HumanHeat has announced a fall tour in support of the forthcoming release. The tour will include shows in St. Paul, Chicago, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and more. All upcoming shows are listed below.

A recent arrival in Minneapolis, Schaaf had been based in Brooklyn the past few years after moving from Wisconsin to start Yellow Ostrich. Schaaf toured the world with the band’s signature vocal-loop and guitar fuzz style, quickly gaining a sizable audience and signing to Barsuk Records. After four years, the band wrapped up in 2014, with the guys interested in pursuing new avenues of expression.

Schaaf then hit the road with other bands, backing artists such as Tei Shi and The Tallest Man on Earth. However, after a few years Schaaf started getting hungry to again focus on his own music. Work started on a new project called HumanHeat. Progress was slow at first, as Schaaf worked on a batch of songs for a few months without anything really sticking.

But then, after the sudden end of a relationship at the end of 2016, Schaaf left Brooklyn and relocated across the country back to his native Midwest. Dealing with the raw feelings and heartbreak that emerged from the breakup, Schaaf scrapped old songs and quickly wrote new ones seeped in the bittersweet emotional aftermath. This fresh spark of inspiration manifested as All Is Too Much, his debut full-length as HumanHeat. Gone are the quirky vocal loops and signature guitar fuzz of Yellow Ostrich, as Schaaf has transitioned to a smoother, more assured and mature voice — keeping the earnest feelings but channeling them into something new, a sound full of warm synths, heavy organs and stately rhythms.

Drawing inspiration from old favorites like Arthur Russell and Bill Withers, as well as incorporating more contemporary hints of Caribou, James Blake and Bon Iver, the songs pulse with a barely restrained energy, ranging from the downbeat heartbreak ballads “Remember When” and “Someone Closer” to more upbeat R&B bangers like “I Need My Space” and “Best For You”. The album closes with “2 Is a Stranger”, a song centered on quiet piano and vocoder that lays out a delicate strategy for how to move forward. Hanson plays drums throughout the album, and Jon Natchez (The War on Drugs) adds horns on two tracks. Schaaf has assembled a live band of local Minneapolis musicians that has already started playing shows around the area, preparing for a tour around the album release. Source: Clarion Call Media